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Life in the Cookie Jar

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If you live in the Bay Area, LA, Orange County, Portland, Seattle, or Chicago--I strongly encourage you to get on board.

Before I go on, I must stress that Imperfect Produce is NOT paying me to say any of this, nor rewarding me for writing this. At the end, if I've convinced you and you decide to sign up, you're free to use my referral link and I'll get a discount off of my next order...but you don't have to!

Okay, back to ImPro, as it abbreviates itself. The idea of the company is simply that too much perfectly good produce (both conventional and organic) is going to waste just because it doesn't meet the visual standards of most grocery stores. The produce ImPro sends your way is either too small or too big, too misshapen, or too blemished to sell well at your local grocer. ImPro advertises that they sell for 30-50% less than what you'd pay in store.

So, does this mean that the product is 30-50% worse than what you'd buy normally? Not in my experienc…

Here's the story of Sam's birth. Nothing queasy-making, don't worry. Unless you hate the word "dilated"...in which case, don't bother.

This pregnancy was my most trying one. The entire first trimester (plus the fourth month) was full of nausea and vomiting multiple times a day. Months five and six of the second trimester were a welcome reprieve. The third trimester was full of the usual aches, pains, and for the last month, early labor! It wasn't the usual Braxton-Hicks kind of contractions (although those were present, too): these were real contractions which would last for an hour or two and make me wonder, "Is this the real thing?" And then, they'd quit. They were true signs of labor, because at my weekly appointments for three weeks running I went from 1 to 2 to 3 cm dilated. Progress was being made, but slowly and with lots of "false alarms."

Week 38 arrived and I went in for my weekly checkup. My regular OB was on …

As I uploaded photos from my camera onto my computer (how very last decade of me!), I was reminded that I never posted any photos from Max's birthday party at the end of March. So here we go, a photo-dense birthday party extravaganza!
Heading back to the end of March, when Max turned 5 and requested a Pokemon themed birthday party. Pokemon are yuuuuge around here with all three kids. If you had told me in the mid 90s--when Pokemon was new and I watched the occasional episode with my little brother and baby sister--that I'd be hosting a Pokemon party for my own children, I don't think I would have believed that the show would have such staying power. But it has, and here we are.

I have a few rules to birthday party survival.
1. Keep the party short.
2. Keep the guest list very short.
3. Keep the schedule of events simple and the games easy.
The games at Max's party were not entirely thematic. Donut bite had no relation to Pokemon whatsoever, but it was very …

I know that it can be irksome--especially when one doesn't have children--to read FB statuses which are full of kid anecdotes. So I'll put it in blog form and that way you can avoid them, you grinches. (Just kidding.)

Yesterday, while Max and I were waiting in the hallway of his school for his preschool classroom to open, he saw a classmate wearing a shirt emblazoned with superheroes. Max said with his usual enthusiasm, "Oh, hey, I LOVE your superhero shirt! And guess what?! I am wearing my superhero underwear today!" The other boy looked nonplussed, which Max took as license to continue on. "I also got NEW BLACK UNDERWEAR!!!" (For some reason, he really digs black underwear, apparently.) After a moment's reflection, Max said, "I bet he'd like to see my underwear!"

This, of course, is when I reminded him that even in the unlikely event that the boy would like to see them, it was not appropriate. Max smiled wistfully and said, &q…

I got an email from Amazon suggesting that I might want to purchase a refill of printer toner. What Amazon doesn't know, of course, is that I used to buy it on Roger's behalf and have it shipped to his house, since he was none too tech savvy.

I won't be needing to place that order again, since Roger (my husband's grandpa) died in a car crash last July. It's odd and bittersweet the way little reminders come back to you months (and years, I suspect) later.

Allen just received some of his possessions, including his very trusty travel mug which went everywhere with him...and it even had his plastic flexi-straw in it. Funny story about that: it wasn't the kind of straw that comes with the cup, just the regular kind that is meant to be disposable. Except that this is Roger we're talking about, so he didn't dispose of it. Waste not, want not. I don't even know how old that straw is. And Roger's beverage of choice in his travel mug? Hot water. Ro…

What a satisfying birthday it has been. Thank you to everyone who commented on my Facebook wall, called me up, sent a card or gift, and otherwise brightened my day.

Because I'm a grown up and I CAN, I had already opened some birthday presents: gift card moolah to two of my favorite stores (JoAnn Fabric and Michael's), and spending money for some new clothes and some tasty samplings of charcuterie and chèvre from Allen, and, of course, the undying affection of my children. Heh. I did have some good quality time playing Legos with Max and Ben and watching all of them frolic at the park this afternoon.
The day still held some surprise gifts, however. These lovely flowers were dropped off on my porch along with a balloon this afternoon with no identifying note. I'm not sure who it is from, but I thank them. It was such a treat to come home to.
There was the gift of beautiful weather; an Indian summer day, perhaps the last reprieve we'll see for a while from the …

My mom was quite the inventive costumer, although her tools of the trade were more along the lines of cardboard refrigerator box/paint. I don't remember a costume request that was too outrageous for her to pull off. I rarely asked to do really spectacular things because I preferred fancy dresses. I think my biggest production costume was being a motorcycle chick, complete with sandwich-board style motorcycle.
My brothers were the ones who consistently throught up neat things. Some that I remember:
*a refrigerator
*a kitchen sink
*a Lego brick
*a Pepsi can
*a Hawaiian punch box
*a box of McDonald's Fries
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but those were the biggies. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was that in the refrigerator and kitchen sink costumes, my mom incorporated a way to make the candy holder part of the costume. In the sink, for example, there was a bag underneath the drain hole which caught the candy. I've never had the opportunity to incorp…